The List
by onedracomalfoy
Summary: Harry finds himself reading a list of very personal thoughts put down by a friend that he just knows he shouldn't have found. HarryHermione. Rated for language and sexual humour. [oneshot]


**This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.**

the list

For the first time in a long time, Harry Potter is sitting in a compartment on Hogwarts Express completely alone. Of course he isn't going to sit with Ginny, no, they have _history_ now, so he sits by himself, waiting for Ron and Hermione to come back from their rounds around the train. It _is _their duty as prefects, of course. Sighing, he looks around the compartment for some sort of amusement.

Next to him is Hermione's small bag of reading material and some quills, and on the floor beside it is an old piece of folded parchment which looks flattened, almost as if it has previously been squished in a book. He carefully unfolds it, and scans it slowly. Strangely, a strong feeling of foreboding crosses his mind. Some part of him knows that this piece of parchment contains information he absolutely should not know. Curiosity killed the cat, didn't it?

'1. No matter what you do, you will always get totally fucked over. You know this from experience, so let it go.

2. When Harry enters the room, you must always divert your attention to your books, homework, RON, even, to make sure he doesn't notice the way you look at him. Distraction is always the best way to play the game.

3. When he gets himself in a scrape and finds you standing over his bedside with your eyes all puffy and red and swollen the moment he wakes up, play the role of the motherly best friend. If he thinks of you as his nagging mother, he'll never develop feelings for you, because that would be disgusting. And it would sort of be incest. Which is gross. So, hopefully, he doesn't think of you as his mother. Urgh. Well, you're kind of contradicting yourself here...

4. But, if he never develops feelings for you, nothing is sacrificed in the friendship except for your happiness.

5. It's not as if that matters to you anyway, as long as both of them are alright, because you couldn't bear the thought of losing them.

6. But strangely enough, it always seems to be Harry who get's himself into these sticky situations, and sometimes you just want to shake him until he's forced to realise what he got you into by becoming his friend.

7. It's all his fault anyway, you know, that you feel like this all the time. If the boy wasn't so bloody brilliant, and didn't make your breath catch in your throat every time you look at him, maybe you wouldn't love him so much.

8. And as hard as you try to deny it, because you are sure that it will make your life so much more difficult by admitting it, you really do love him.

9. You love the way he ruffles his black hair around when he's nervous; the way his green eyes sparkle when he's just won a Quidditch match; how he tries to hide from you his bad marks because he knows you'll be terribly disappointed in him, and he just hates the look you give him when you see the big, ominous red letter 'D' in the right-hand corner of his parchment. It's priceless, and you wish you could offer to have some late-night potions studying with him in the library (even though 'the Prince' helped him out this passed year), and tell him you just want to help him for NEWT preparation, when you'll really be wanting to do...

10. Other...things...ahem...

11. Ha ha ha. That category, "other things", deserves it's own list in itself. Just because of how bloody fucking fun it would be to write it. You KNOW you want to write it. Desperately. This is a note to you, self, to begin that list later.

12. But you digress. Continuing what you were saying before, you must must MUST make sure that you keep your eyes steadily focused on Ron. Everyone knows he has a bit of a thing for you - and you must admit, you truly don't understand it; you were over here thinking that the two of you couldn't stand each other, but that must have been just you - and, although you know it's terrible for you to use him like this, he can be sort of another distraction. With Ron in the picture, it will be incredibly difficult for you to find time for Harry in your thoughts.

13. Hopefully.

14. You are such a malicious person, you do know that, don't you?

15. Then again, it's not as if you would actually date Ron, so it's not like you're going to make Harry jealous by potentially hurting one of your best friends...but you _are_ leading him on a bit. Maybe, if Ron's as thick as he makes himself out to be 99 percent of the time, he won't notice your advances, while Harry, on the other hand, most definitely will.

16. You're not sure whether or not he thinks you and Ron would make a cute couple. It's not like you'd ever ask him or anything, obviously. Still, you sometimes wonder...like, last year, when Harry arrived at Grimmauld Place, and you were so excited to see him you nearly killed him. You remember Ron told you to 'let him breathe'. Oh, Ronald, that sad, sad little dear. How DARE he ask you to 'let him breathe'? 'Let him breathe', as if you were suffocating him or something? Yeah bloody damn well right like you're going to 'let him breathe'. 'Let him breathe' your fucking arse is what you think he should 'breathe'. Fucking Ronald.

17. He got really angry though, that day, you remember that so clearly. You could never forget the first twinge of fear as he raised his voice so loud that you had to fight to control your tears, and looked at you so angrily you were afraid he might attack you. He looked at you as though you were the last thing in the world he wanted to see, and that in itself is what hurt you the most. When you love someone so much you never expect them to misunderstand your intentions so strongly and unyieldingly. You expect them to understand, forgive and forget, and be done with it. That is most definitely not the Harry you know.

18. Maybe that's why you love him. He's strong-minded, like you. You like that in a man. Makes for a good husband, a good father.

19. Not that you're assuming you will someday have his babies.

20. Because you won't.

21. Unfortunately.

22. Unless you force him.

23. But that's called rape and is looked down upon in most societies.

24. Besides, it's not like he'd ever want someone like you anyway. You're just...you. Boring old you. He's not going to randomly realise he suddenly wants to be with you for the rest of his life. People just don't wake up one morning and have that sudden kind of life-changing epiphany. It just doesn't work like that.

25. Sigh.

26. If only they did, though. If only he could see how much you care about him, and how much you mean to him. If only he understood that you kept your distance this year to make these feelings go away, to make yourself fall for the boy you _should_ love, the boy who _deserves_ your love. If only you could wake up one morning and fall in love with Ron.

27. If only Harry could wake up one morning and fall in love with _you_.

28. But you must do what's necessary to protect yourself. Goodness knows, if Harry ever found out, it would destroy everything you hold dear in the world, and leave you alone with no one...you shudder even thinking about it. Luckily, he's not going to read this. Not now or ever.

29. But, remember, no matter what you do or how hard you try, you will always get fucked over, so you might as well simply _let him go_.

30. So, onward, onward It's time you move on with your life, and maybe he'll someday have a sudden, morning epiphany and you'll find him standing at your door with daisies and an apology for missing all of the signs over the years. Maybe...just _maybe_. And strangely, you're finding that to be enough for now.

31. Jolly good, old girl. _Jolly_ good.'

And so, Harry finishes reading the contents of the parchment. His eyes widen in complete shock as he begins to recognise the curly, neat handwriting on the page.

When his bushy-haired best friend enters the compartment with a spitting Crookshanks in her arms, he quickly hides the parchment in his pocket.

Hermione sits down across from him and smiles warmly, and for some reason her smile looks different to him now that he sees it with this new knowledge. He sees kindness and trust and...what is that...could it be..._love_? No, no, this whole list was just a joke...someone was trying to fool him, play a nasty trick...there is no way he could have only just noticed those kinds of feelings in here smile because of a silly list.

But he can't understand why her smile is so different; he can't understand why, when she wipes a stray piece of hair off of his forehead there is a jolt of electricity that runs through his body, and feels a magnetic urge to do the same to her. But he knows it doesn't make any sense; he remembers when he kissed Ginny for the first time in the common room after they had won that Quidditch match, she had been beaming at him, like she was really proud of him.

"Why–why were you happy when I first kissed Ginny?" Harry squeaks out, bewildered, knowing full-well that this is a completely random question. Hermione looks completely taken aback, and pauses, then leans back into her seat to answer.

"Because you were happy," she whispers. Her eyes glisten with tears, and he pulls the parchment out of his pocket. She doesn't look angry, or even upset...just resigned. She actually nods her head, and quietly says, "I guess I just figured that if _I_ couldn't make you happy, at least someone can."

And suddenly, Harry understands.

end


End file.
